[Translated by the Center for Especifismo Studies (CES)]
Original Spanish article available here: https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/09/30/anarquia-y-cabeza-fria-el-especifismo-como-punta-de-lanza/
“Revolutions without theory don’t make any progress. We, the “Friends of Durruti”, have outlined our thinking; it can be changed with the demands of large-scale, social unrest, but it’s inevitably based on two crucial elements: a program and rifles” [1].
The anarchist organizations that subscribe to the strategy of especifismo have gathered for our first Encuentro del Anarquismo Especifista. It was the next step in our journey of self-reflection and reformulation that started a while back. Separately, but in the same context, this process has led us to the conclusion that especifismo offers the best framework for the kind of revolution we seek. It’s because we are militantly committed to our own class that we aim to abolish it as part of the complete abolition of the class system as a whole. So, as especifismo militants, we wanted to mark this occasion by laying out the qualitative contributions that we see this strategy bringing to the class struggle.
This text, which aims to explain why we organize ourselves in this particular way, is divided into four parts plus this introduction. We’ll start by laying out that, as revolutionaries, our actions today come from reflecting on our own past experiences. We’ll then go on to explain the concept of dual militancy, a fundamental part of especifismo. In the third part, we’ll develop the concept of the specific organization. Finally, we’ll conclude with the specific organization’s connection to strategy.
Before getting started, it’s important to explain that when we speak of the working class we mean it as a class, in its totality, not as individuals. This takes into account the entire system that produces and reproduces how we live, because you can’t understand the working class without also trying to understand the totality of different forms of oppression experienced on the basis of gender, ethnic background, etc. We believe reality has to be looked at scientifically in order to find the material basis generating the specific conditions where oppression manifests itself as racism, misogyny, etc.
1. Reflection and assessment form a backbone
To begin, let’s make clear that we aren’t proponents of especifismo by chance or because of its aesthetic appeal, or even because of our immediate circumstances. Instead, we’ve come to this strategy by accepting that “evaluating one’s own experience is a revolutionary movement’s proof of validity”, as stated by the Federación Estudiantil Libertaria in ‘Senda’ [2]. For us, taking up especifismo, instead of something else, was the result of assessing the most recent political cycle, which we intend to move beyond in our efforts to avoid the same mistakes and limitations of our older way of organizing. The previous political cycle specifically refers to the cycle of struggles that began around 2008 with the bursting of the real estate bubble, gained massive support with the 15-M movement, started losing steam after las Marchas de la Dignidad in 2014 and the Procés in 2017, and revealed itself to be especially weak after the COVID lockdown in 2020.
Specifically, our evaluation comes from three places: the particularities of our organizing experiences, the concrete class struggle occurring within the domain of the Spanish state, and the international class struggle more broadly [3].
First, we’ve implemented the specific organization to overcome the limitations of the insurrectionist, autonomist, and synthesist organizational models that are found in the anarchist movement [4]. At the same time, and in a sincere way, we see anarchism as the seed of revolution and the potential for the abolition of class society.
Second, we’ve adopted especifismo as a way of pushing back against the cross-class strategy found in the grassroots organizations born out of 15-M and the national liberation movements. This means we organize ourselves in the specific organization as well as in movements that bring us together as a class, movements that fight for the political independence of the working class more broadly.
We understand the political independence of the working class (or class independence) as the capacity of the working class to follow its own strategic line in the class struggle, without allowing itself to work in the enemy’s interests or be directed by the enemy’s programs. We contrast the concept of class independence to that of class collaboration, or what we call a cross-class strategy. Combining forces across class lines limited the focus of struggle during the previous political cycle. For us as anarchists, defending class independence is inseparable from what we anarchists mean when we talk about the unity between means and ends.
Third, through historical analysis of the class struggle at the international level we’ve come to see the need for a specific anarchist organization: a distinctly political organization that intentionally brings anarchists together around a shared and collectively determined program. Again, this conclusion is the result of our own assessment of the criticisms that came out of the revolutionary defeats of the Paris Commune, the Liberated Territory of the Ukraine, Spain in 1936, the FAU in the 1970s, etc. By contextualizing these experiences, rather than just mechanically adopting them, we’ve been able to draw valuable lessons that can be applied to our current situation. Following from this analysis, and due to our particular material conditions, we don’t just read and adopt texts like ‘The Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists’, ‘COPEI’ [5], or the publications of Friends of Durruti in ‘Amigo del Pueblo’. Felipe Corrêa’s Bandera Negra is a good example of the kind of critical evaluation we’re referring to, especially in regard to historically cataloging the correlation between theory and practice in the anarchist movement globally.
We publish our ideas on our online platform ‘Regeneración Libertaria’, which was itself born out of these reflections and assessments. It was the result of a larger analysis pointing to the need for a publishing outlet where we’ll have our own voice, where we can express ourselves and be present in the debates currently taking place amongst the working class. We understand that a proletariat with revolutionary aims is not organized exclusively in a single organic structure. A lot of revolutionary momentum is generated by proving and disproving, in practice, the different revolutionary theses offered up by the organized proletariat and their respective organizations, as well as through dialogue between them.
2. Dual militancy
From our historical analysis, we’ve come to understand that the political organization must be in constant contact with mass organizations, including possible and even spontaneous forms of organizing the working class. This relationship is based on the potential of gaining strength strategically.
We also think it’s necessary to empirically test different hypotheses about revolution, to find out which forms of organizing are useful and which aren’t, which needs are most widely felt by the various layers of the working class, etc.
For these reasons, we’ve adopted a form of dual militancy at the organizational level. This means militancy both within the specific anarchist organization and at the multiple fronts arising from the contradictions of capitalism [6].
Dual militancy gives us the confidence to do social-level work within these fronts in a positive way, without inadvertently co-opting them. It ensures that the specific organization is an organization of anarchist cadres, militantly working to make their own fronts of struggle as useful as possible to the class struggle as a whole. In the specific organization, militants coming from different fronts aim to put their unique experiences at the service of a more complete strategy to keep from being isolated.
This linking of fronts is not a tactic pulled out of thin air or that tries to dogmatically replicate other periods of struggle. It’s a direct response to the refrain of “autonomy for autonomy’s sake” [7] and to the uncompromising independence that has become all too common among the different sectors and organizations in the class struggle. It’s an attempt to get past the many limitations in how struggles were coordinated during the last political cycle, since they resulted in compromises, resignations, and internal conflicts, ultimately just serving a petit bourgeois agenda [8].
3. The specific organization
Contrary to “typical” partisanship, especifismo gives top priority to the advancement of fronts in real, concrete struggles. The specific organization positions itself as a tool for them. But there’s something even more unique about especifismo: the specific organization’s capacity to develop a strategy for addressing capitalism as a totality, a strategy that includes participating in the broad class struggle and learning lessons on multiple fronts.
With this larger strategy in mind, we aren’t just passively and naively going along with the current model of class struggle. What we call the “front model” is organized around fronts that find themselves disconnected from each other. This situation reflects the fragmentation of the working class and the bourgeois conception of reality as something separated, individualized, and compartmentalized. By organizing ourselves as anarchists at these fronts, and by shaping the specific organization based on the struggles occurring there, we’ll be responsive to the actual reality we’re facing. If we want to change it, we have to find ways to intervene in the situation as it exists. If we want to transform society, we have to adapt our tools to the context.
Following from this, as well as from our own materialist analysis, we’re now trying to get together with other people who share the political positions that we’ve been expressing publicly, to organize ourselves into a specific organization aimed at building social force. It’s because we want to build social force that our social-level militancy isn’t simply about figuring out which problems affect the most people. Especifismo is a strategy for proactively participating in spaces that have the qualitative characteristics for building strength behind a class-based program. This means spaces that have the potential to produce new structures from the bottom up. So, we push back against the reproduction of the dominant bourgeois discourse in spaces where we’re active.
With the specific organization, we aim to overcome the current front model and move toward unifying various struggles in a way that prefigures the organic unity of the working class. If this organic unity seems possible, it’s because we can imagine organizing the totality of the class in specific ways. However, it’s the reflections and assessments of militant experiences, of the conjuncture at a given moment, and of the needs of the struggle that will determine the form it ends up taking.
Regardless, we consider the content of this organic unity to be more important than the form. While we understand that form and content cannot be disentangled, the most perfect organizational form isn’t enough to abolish class society if its content is not centered around the revolutionary struggle of the working class. We’re committed to participating in the existing fronts of struggle, defending the independence of our class from partisan squabbles. Following from the principle of unity between means and ends, it’s only with a class program at the fronts of struggle that they’ll be able to achieve an organic unity capable of leading the working class beyond its current form.
Although the proletariat, in terms of numbers, has been the protagonist in multiple struggles of the 21st century, this hasn’t been on its own terms. Again, this shows that just because a social group plays a protagonizing role in a movement, organization, etc., this doesn’t necessarily mean that it will defend the political positions that made it possible. To put it another way, our class doesn’t inherently contain a ready-made program for its own liberation. While we do recognize that with the “independent” model of social struggle some advances were made that improved the quality of life for the working class, these independent struggles must now turn their development toward the horizon of libertarian communism in order to overcome the class system as a whole. So, our main task in the especifismo movement is to make the discourse on class, and on the need for a revolutionary program, hegemonic on multiple fronts. As it develops, this revolutionary program will be the fruit of collective effort coming from the whole working class, of dialogue between the multiple sectors of that class, and of the necessary organic debate, a debate that will be finalized through a process of democratic decision-making and only reopened in light of new scientific advances that make the agreed upon positions less certain.
4. A strategy for revolution
The specific organization is a catalyst for unifying the working class around a revolutionary theory. Its primary function is to serve as a center for creating revolutionary discourse and strategy for the entire working class. This means that, through dual militancy and social insertion [9], the specific anarchist organization gives the working class a way to take stock of its position and its past experiences, as well as its enemies, all while contributing to the ongoing process of abolishing class society.
“Our interpretation is that, instead of being led by common sense, the revolutionary working class has always determined its direction rationally and scientifically. That is to say that at each moment it has assessed its position, its possibilities, the information and knowledge at its disposal, and then acted accordingly” [10].
An objective of the specific organization is to be a conscious organ of the revolutionary working class.
As was explained in ‘Senda’, one way that cross-classism gained so much ground within the working class was because it didn’t have a strategy of its own. Our own specific organization was born in response to this working class failure. As we’ve already said, we want an organization that always orients its actions through a revolutionary strategy.
We believe that especifismo provides a coherent and comprehensive response to the current need for a revolutionary organization that is capable of promoting and developing itself by engaging with every front of struggle that has strategic revolutionary potential. We see especifismo as a model for action that can qualitatively and quantitatively strengthen the forces within an emerging understanding of revolution. It can set us on the road that makes revolution possible, something that we see as our militant responsibility. We have to keep pushing forward, advancing the proletarian cause all the way to the abolition of class society.
In summary, we understand especifismo as a theoretical framework with concepts based on the need for practice and contextual analysis. As a framework, especifismo is adaptable, so the concrete ways we organize ourselves will continue to be responsive to the specific situations we find ourselves in. Through social insertion, carried out with dual militancy, we can help the class struggle move forward, overcoming all the little differences by bringing them to the attention of the whole proletarian struggle for the abolition of class society, and in this way, also working toward the abolition of all forms of oppression.
T. Morago y Malfainer
[1] Balius, J. (s. f.). Una teoría revolucionaria. El Amigo del Pueblo, 5.
https://www.grupgerminal.org/?q=system/files/Unateoriarevolucionaria-Balius-julio37.pdf
[2] https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/02/26/senda-balance-militante-de-la-experiencia-de-la-federacion-estudiantil-libertaria/
[3] To go deeper into the concept of “assessment”, see
https://serhistorico.net/2023/06/06/la-historia-es-un-campo-de-batalla-mas-de-la-guerra-de-clases-en-curso/
[4] For an introduction to the critiques of autonomist and synthesist forms, read
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/05/29/poder-popular-y-anarquismo-especifista
or https://blackrosefed.org/especifismo-la-praxis-anarquista/.
For an introduction to the critique of insurrectionary anarchism, see
https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2014/10/28/las-razones-del-anarquismo-social/
or https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2014/06/11/can-vies-poder-popular-o-insurreccionalismo/ .
[5] Internal strategy documents of the FAU (Uruguayan Anarchist Foundation), available at
http://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/copei-1a-parte-documentos-de-fau-1972/
and http://federacionanarquistauruguaya.uy/copei-2a-parte-documentos-de-fau-1972/.
Vía Libre, our sister organisation in Columbia, is discusses COPEI here
https://grupovialibre.org/2010/11/02/sesion-no-15-reflexiones-sobre-los-textos-copei-i-y-ii-de-la-federacion-anarquista-uruguaya-fau/
[6] https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2023/12/05/el-anarquismo-ante-el-nuevo-ciclo-politico
[7] “By ‘autonomy for autonomy’s sake’ we mean dedication to the absolute freedom of each assembly, nucleus, or headquarters of a movement to decide theory, strategy, discourse, positions, etc. entirely for itself” This has been the norm in the previous political cycle. We oppose this autonomy with the discursive, tactical and strategic unity built from honest and relevant debate: “[The effects of autonomy for autonomy’s sake] generate an organization incapable of exercising its own mandate, of multiplying the anarchist forces that formed it, of making the whole more than the sum of the parts. It’s not enough to have the will to be a large (general) organization: we need mechanisms for unifying our positions, for making adequate analyses, and for resolving conflicts.” Quotes taken from the Senda, cited above [translated here from Spanish by CES].
[8] We don’t think these failures and commitments to different fronts should be blamed on autonomy for autonomy’s sake or on the intervention of a diversity of actors in these spaces. Instead, we think it’s the result of having given up on class independence combined with the lack of a strategic revolutionary program. Both of these symptoms favor the emergence of reformism. Since our class in this period didn’t have a clear leading referent capable of contesting and questioning the hegemonic ideology, the changes that came from the improvements in living conditions took shape within petit bourgeois thought, with tinges of redistributive social democracy, sure, but by denying the existence of the proletariat, it shouldn’t really be considered social or democratic.
[9] For an introduction to the concept of social insertion and to other key concepts of the specific anarchist organisation, see “Foundational Concepts of the Specific Anarchist Organization” available in English here
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tommy-lawson-foundational-concepts-of-the-specific-anarchist-organisation
[10] https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/06/04/el-programatismo-y-el-abolicionismo-en-el-recorrido-de-la-lucha-de-clases/
CES 